Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Stoobalou writes "Sony has recently published patent applications which will allow two-player 3D gaming on a single screen. The new technology could spell an end to split-screen gaming, but is unlikely to see the light of day for a few years at least. Sony's method would allow player one to see frames one and three whilst player two would see frames two and four. Current technology requires a display with a 120 Hz refresh rate so it seems likely that we'll have to wait for 240Hz screen technology to become commonplace before two-player 3D becomes a reality. PDF versions of the two applicationsare available."

So, no more sociable gaming sessions where a couple of people take their turn race/fight/whatever and other people watch.

I suppose as long as the game also supports a traditional split screen mode, it'll still work out -- and that mode will have to continue to exist for quite a while, as long as many people don't have 3D hardware.

Can you polarise light in more than two directions and still have the images separate? Because this system is talking about displaying 4 separate images, not just two. Though I hadn't even heard of it being done just for two images for local multiplayer. It's a very cool idea, I'd like to see it even without the 3D aspect.

Can you polarise light in more than two directions and still have the images separate?

You don't need to. This doesn't use polarization to separate the images in the way you seem to be thinking. They do not transmit one eye's image with horizontal polarization, and the other eye's image with vertical polarization. (Actually, old systems didn't use horizontal and vertical, but 45 degrees and 135 degrees. The systems in the theatres today use clockwise and counterclockwise circular polarization. This al

Wouldn't this still mess with you? Sure, you are seeing 60fps in each eye, but then you are seeing that frame for 1/4th as long as you would have (or 1/2 in the case of 3D or 2Player 2D) -- since each eye's shutter will be closed for 3/4 of each of the 60 frames. I don't know much about how the optic nerves work, so I guess the brain could make up for the missing time...

Technically yes, but it's a really, really hard thing to do. You'd have to quadruple the frame rate, then manage a way of changing the orientation of the polarization at each frame. And unfortunately since polarizing filters have maximum effect at a 90 degree angle you're stuck with covering lenses at some points to ensure that the wrong person doesn't get the effect. Mainly because the minimum effect is at 0 and 180 degrees. You can somewhat offset that by going at angles less ideal, but then you have to p

So current polarisation projectors display different polarisations on alternating frames? I had previously thought that one advantage of the passive system is that you don't need to only be showing an image to one eye at a time, but I guess with framerates of 60Hz for each eye then it just isn't really noticeable anyway.

Yeah, this is a great disadvantage of 3D... But a technology to allow multiple players to compete in 3D (without spectators being able to watch) is doomed to fail since it is already obsolete... We will more likely see consoles with 3D display glasses per player. Playing 3D with 1, 2, 4 or more per console is trivially easy (only limited by the bandwidth of the transmission mechanism), more likely even is this: the glasses will one day even *be* the console, and allow you to start a LAN party just by gettin

Traditional split screen barely exists as it is. Very few games support couch-coopthese days... despite the screaming of people who actually like to physically visittheir friends and game. See here [cooptimus.com] to get anidea just how pathetic the selection is.

While it's good to see people think towards 3D split-screen A) patent wars will asusual keep the technology lagging for years and years and B) all the gamedevelopers are currently planning of using any computing resources they wouldfor split-screen to support 3D.

I made a poster about this very idea for my elementary school's "invention fair" about 20 years ago. I've probably got the poster around somewhere. Maybe I'll scan it and place it on the Internet as prior art? It certainly had many aspects of today's systems -- LCD glasses synced by IR, individual audio over IR, etc.

Their legal department might be trying to recuperate their costs now by suing others. It's a game that benefits no one. Meanwhile, Sony is part of the MPEG-LA consortium that's preventing free software and SMEs from including support for MPEG video formats, so they deserve no good will.

It is just multiple shutter glasses running at 240+ hertz. Frame one is in the right eye of player one, frame two in the right eye of player two, frame three in the left eye of player one, and frame four in the left eye of player two.

What would be better would be normal multi-player with shutter glasses. (example: in a 4 player game every player sees only their frames and cannot see the other players pov. A person w/o a set of glasses would see a set of blurry images.)

I don't like this idea though. While playing games I usually would have my girlfriend present to cheer me on.
Every so often she would cheer for someone else who had the highest kill streak at the time.
With this system though, she'd have to switch glasses every few seconds. How would she scan each viewpoint to find the one most worth watching? This is only OK for the gamers..the spectators lose out a lot from this.

I'm wary of patients too, but can this really happen. I understand lawyers are paid to fight their clients corner and not pay attention to anything else. Could any one give examples of one widely used feature being banned or avoided due to a superficial similarity with a newer patented technology.

Yes I was serious, please excuse my ignorance of legal issues. Remember I said

widely used feature being banned or avoided

I also don't know enough about big companies and their risk avoidance behaviour. It may well be this patent would ensure companies avoid the technique to insure them self's against risk, however negligible.

That shouldn't be necessary as prior art [wikipedia.org] is a defence to patent infringement, and there must be literally thousands (or at the very least hundreds) of examples of split-screen games that pre-date the patent.

Of course, that's just about the situation already except in the case of a few notable exceptions. It's easier for devs to just insist multiplayer is online or requires two consoles on a LAN (not to mention more profitable to require two copies of the game) than it is to optimise for split-screen multiplayer. This has been the de facto position for a while now, the bigger question would be whether this new technology can revive multiplayer on a single console or whether it will simply replace split screen a

No kidding. I remember a whole 8-9 years ago, it took the arms of.. well one guy to lug an Xbox around and carefully unravel and connect that "network" cable. For gaming, this sounds as revolutionary as a flower pot with flowers on it.

You don't really *need* a 240Hz screen. Or rather, you only need one if you want to game at 60FPS. If you're willing to accept a 30FPS rate (the standard in the playstation era, and faster than a movie framerate) you can do it on 120 Hz. The console probably wants to run at that framerate anyway, since I doubt it wants to render a single-player's worth of junk twice as fast as normal.

I played in standard 3D goggles at 80Hz. No, it doesn't work. You NEED 60Hz per eye.

If the image is held up, 30ms image, 3ms flicker of image change (usually a blur of the previous and next), 30ms image - standard effect of frame rate drop, then the 30Hz it's okay. The flicker lasts too short to be noticed and is a blend of the two anyway. Nothing to see.

This is not the case here. At 80Hz you get 5ms of image, then 1ms of blending to black, then 5ms of darkness, then 1ms blending to next image. The rapid fl

Shutter glasses running that fast but skipping every other frame means that each eye would see only 1 out of 4 frames. I am guessing with so little "on" time, it will start to damage perceived image persistence and it is likely the brain will start to notice flicker. The image would also seem to be 1/4 brightness instead of 1/2 brightness like a single 3D image. Then add that with a single view (player), the two images are very similar in brightness and appearance. But if you interleave that with anothe

But 1/4th the light getting into the eye would better get a very bright screen or it will be very, very dark.

1/4 the light is only two stops (photographically speaking) difference. Given that the LED displays I've been seeing lately are so blindingly bright that you turn down the brightness to a very low setting, I don't think it will be much of an issue.

I'm not sure I can ever remember a time when I suddenly stopped playing an FPS game because the "3D simulation on a 2D screen" wasn't immersive enough for me - but I can remember stopping many games because they were crap.

Likewise, I cannot remember staring at a movie in the cinema or on a TV screen and not feeling immersed enough due to flat screen images - but I can remember walking out of crap movies in cinemas or turning off crap DVDs.

I'm also old enough to remember movies like Jaws 3D which were released *SPECIFICALLY* to showcase 3D but were ultimately crap movies... Avatar was very pretty, I'm pleased I saw it but was ultimately just a series of graphical set pieces strung together by a simple plot.

3D in entertainment is a gimmick & marketing tool, nothing more. It turns everything into eye candy which means your brain spends more time looking at stuff rather than wondering about the quality of the plot and the content - if you look at most stuff that's released as entertainment these days, it's clear to see quality standards have dropped, everything now is about marketing and branding.

And as such, the technology companies are in the pay of the entertainment companies to force 3D on consumers so they can continue to churn out mainstream rubbish remakes.

Forget the 3d crap, with this tech we can now have 4 player 2d coop on ONE SCREEN!
No more tiny/stretched boxes, no more "Screen Watching", no more "Only 2 player" and "Only 1 player per console" etc...

^_^ This is the biggest advancement in actual game tech I have heard from in years!

I remember a silent movie actress named Mary Pickford once said that adding sound to movies would be like adding lipstick to the Venus de Milo. You seem similarly dismissive of an immature technology whose artistic possibilities have only barely been explored. You seem to be betting, just like Ms. Pickford did before you, that it'll never see artistic application in the hands of an imaginative filmmaker who would find a way to make it break out of its gimmicky underpinnings. I hope you don't put down a s

Correct - and when I am in my front garden weeding the flower beds, I also wave down drivers who are speeding on the road going past my house - yes, I'm an old duffer but that just means I've seen more in my time to make comparisons against, plus my cynicism gland is fully matured.

Check out Pixar's Toy Story 3. It's the most mature usage of 3D I've ever seen. And by that, I mean you almost never notice it. It's like background music: it heightens the experience subtly without abusively sticking out.

I would like to see some sort of study where one group of people saw a well-produced 3D film, one group saw the same film in 2D, and they rated the emotional impact. Personally, I'm guessing the 3D group would say that there was more impact, but wouldn't attribute it to the 3D.

If word of the hype machine and some of my friends who saw Avatar is to be believed, 3D makes everything that was once crap entirely utterly awesome. You're just being cynical and refusing to embrace The Future.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a re-release of Superman 64 [wikipedia.org] on my 3D TV. It'll be like the entire games room is enveloped in purple fog [digitpress.com]!

Look at HD and how all that's HD is sold as so much better that SD and how we should buy new TV Sets and Blu-Ray players and get all our movie collection again this time in Blu-Ray disks...

In the same way, 3D is the next gimmick that's supposed to help consumer electronics to sell us new TV sets and new players and media companies to sell us (once more) our movie collections in a new format.

Using existing channel separation to (shock!) separate channels is really so obvious that I would never even imagine to apply for a patent. The US Patent Office should have lost its right to handle patents long ago, as they are only hurting society with their "we grant everything" attitude. They are not capable at all.

Using existing channel separation to (shock!) separate channels is really so obvious that I would never even imagine to apply for a patent. The US Patent Office should have lost its right to handle patents long ago, as they are only hurting society with their "we grant everything" attitude. They are not capable at all.

Know how I know you don't understand the difference between "published" and "issued"? The USPTO hasn't looked at these applications yet except to publish them. The Slashdot Readership should have lost its right to complain about patents long ago, as they're only hurting society with their FUD.

To be fair, when I was reading about Nintendo's new 3D tech in their handheld 3DS, someone mentioned that the same tech was being used in car consoles to provide the driver with a GPS display and the passenger with a movie.

I think it's kind of clever. It's just that given current technology it's so simple that I'm surprised it hasn't been used more.

Yes I can say this is obvious now. Anyone with the same problem would probably have solved it the same or at least thought about that solution. So what is really patented here is the problem, not the solution.

You realize that by only seeing half the frames produced by the TV, even if the resulting video appears to be 30fps in 3D, will by default be half the brightness of the original TV, not counting whatever light reduction (and you thought 3D glasses were dark already!) you get from the fancy 3D glasses.

Eventually you're going to hit a point where you just say, "you know, let's just spring for the twin-screen 720p display glasses" for $1000 and call it a day. $700 for a pair of video glasses a decade ago was stupid money, now it's looking like a much better option for 3D.

Fun fact: movie theater projectors only project light on the screen 50% of the time; the other half of the time is spent with the shutter closed while the film progresses to the next frame.... you just make up for the 50% reduction in light by using a $150 xenon bulb the size of a NFL regulation football that has to be handled with gloves, full face mask and shrapnel suit -> cool youtube video example (not me!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpD8SWzKFM [youtube.com] DLP projectors are much more efficient since about 90% of the light makes it to the screen (the mirrors are always moving, but there's still the color wheel) so they can use a smaller bulb.

I worked at a drive-in theater when I was a teenager. The projectors there and presumably all drive-ins used arc lamps. [wikipedia.org] The lamp's rod was adjusted every reel or two, and replaced when they became too short.

Seems like a pretty cool idea to me. Especially in games where you get a much better experience will a full screen view (driving, exploring, platform, 3d, hell anything really)

The thought of a four player gauntlet type game where each player sees a view centred around their own player (and only the areas of the game where they have visited) would be pretty nifty and would encourage communication between players sitting on the sofa rather than having to contend with a bunch of 13 year olds shouting obsceniti

It might not be great for spectators, but it would also be better for deathmatch type games, where having split screen takes away some of the fun because you can see your opponent is waiting around the next corner. Mind you, I can stomach about an hour, maybe 90 minutes of cinema 3D glasses tops, so I can't see me ever getting into 3D in the home unless something is drastically improved (not to mention, as a spectacle wearer already and pretty short-sighted at that, just the practicality of wearing 3D glass

I'm pretty sure that I saw people doing this on the Meant to be seen DIY forums (http://mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=26) quite some time back. In that case they did use two different consoles plugged into the different machines of course; and they used polarized glasses. It might be that this is supposed to be a complete system for it. (All the way from console rendering the frames to syncing the glasses.)

As an aside I can recommend anyone who has access to an old "silver screen" to make their own 3D pr

Cute idea, it could realistically mean 2D for two different people already. Feel real' sorry for the onlookers though. Stereoscopy is headache-inducing enough when the images flicker back and forth but two different images would give anyone a seizure.

By the time 240hz come around (only see it happening with DLP with multiple synced projectors) you could even have 4 players seeing a different 2D image.

What if they made a game where both 3D views were meant to be seen by the same player? It would add a second layer to the main game - like that game where you can only see ghosts through your camera. You could have the ordinary world, then flip a switch on your shutter glasses and you can see a second world layered on top. Like jumping between worlds in Silent Hill.

Apart from the addition of a pair of unwieldy 3D glasses and the extra resources required to show two views at once when the player is only ever going to see one of them at a time, I don't see what that would add over a button that switched between two views.

I'd love to be able to split the screen between a normal 2D view of a game and television or a movie, and it seems like the tech to do that right now should be reasonably trivial. Living with a partner who isn't into games, and being someone who isn't really into TV, this would mean neither had to sacrifice time in front of the idiot box so the other could use it. Also, it would have been a godsend when I lived at home with my parents - being able to blast away on the console while they watched crummy made-

They should not be challenged, they should not exist in the first place. I read about so many obvious patents here that is is totally infeasible to challenge them all. The patent system might work if only a limited set of brilliant ideas is granted a patent, but not if every breath is granted a patent. If this were an incident, you were right. But this is not an incident. The US Patent Office is really incapable of granting patents.

They should not be challenged, they should not exist in the first place. I read about so many obvious patents here that is is totally infeasible to challenge them all. The patent system might work if only a limited set of brilliant ideas is granted a patent, but not if every breath is granted a patent. If this were an incident, you were right. But this is not an incident. The US Patent Office is really incapable of granting patents.

These are NOT patents. The summary is wrong. They have merely been published and have not been examined at all yet. Additionally, the public can submit prior art for the Examiner to look at when they do start examining these applications. Quit your biatching, 'cause you obviously haven't read anything other the summary.

For one thing, that's $180 for submitting the information, plus more money for knowing how the USPTO wants these things phrased. (See the old story about knowing which screw to turn [pinds.com].) For another, it applies only to information submitted "within two months from the date of publication of the application". The ordinary reexamination process and fee apply after that point.

I bet you could even get a dollar from a hundred and eighty Slashdot posters.

For one thing, that's $180 for submitting the information, plus more money for knowing how the USPTO wants these things phrased. (See the old story about knowing which screw to turn [pinds.com].) For another, it applies only to information submitted "within two months from the date of publication of the application". The ordinary reexamination process and fee apply after that point.

No, that page I linked to describes exactly how to submit everything. And it's just $180. And yes, you've got two months. So, two months from now, when you haven't done anything, grandparent post's comment that people just bitch but don't actually do anything will be both insightful and prescient.

I bet you could even get a dollar from a hundred and eighty Slashdot posters.

Even after the payment processing fees?

What payment processing fee? You can use a credit card, send a check, or even a money order.

It seems like you keep inventing new unsurmountable obstacles - processing fees that don't exist, special requirements th

What should I do if I become aware of prior art after the two-month window after publication has passed? For example, I know of prior art from the Commodore 64 era that may invalidate Namco's patent on minigames during video game loading screens, but I wasn't aware of the patent itself until over a year after it was issued. If the choice is between whining and eating vs. challenging and starving, I don't rush to blame someone who chooses whining and eating.

What should I do if I become aware of prior art after the two-month window after publication has passed? For example, I know of prior art from the Commodore 64 era that may invalidate Namco's patent on minigames during video game loading screens, but I wasn't aware of the patent itself until over a year after it was issued. If the choice is between whining and eating vs. challenging and starving, I don't rush to blame someone who chooses whining and eating.

Yes, 2 months is a great analogy for starving.

You can use a credit card

The merchant needs a web site (with hosting fee per year), an SSL certificate from a well-known certificate authority (with fee per year), and a merchant account and payment gateway (with fee per month, per transaction, and per dollar).

WTF are you talking about? You submit art to the USPTO as PDFs.

send a check

With a stamp. How many people are going to take the time to write a $1 check and then spend 44 cents for U.S. first-class postage or (worse) far greater international postage and currency conversion fees to mail it?

People who don't use a credit card. Which they can use. Without having to pay for hosting fees. Seriously... wtf? Hosting fees, SSL certificates and a merchant account? Are you even still

There is no point in challenging this patent: it is most likely a valid patent under the current rules. The problem is that the patent legislation allows patents that are obvious to be granted, because their interpretation of the word obvious is not the obvious, normal, interpretation. And EFF cannot help with bad laws.

There is no point in challenging this patent: it is most likely a valid patent under the current rules. The problem is that the patent legislation allows patents that are obvious to be granted, because their interpretation of the word obvious is not the obvious, normal, interpretation. And EFF cannot help with bad laws.

These are applications, not patents. They haven't even been examined yet.

the patent isn't about changing the angles... it's about multiplexing the video signal another order of magnitude to allow 2 people to see different full screen images at the same time. i have an optoma HD66 project that supports HD 3D... i tried it out with the sony shutter glasses... it looked worse than avatar and was more uncomfortable/headache inducing... so the technology has to more than double just to get the same unacceptable results, and when you add in the fact that player 1 might be in a dark c

Not if you also lengthen the sides. That is why we have different units for different things, and try to use them correctly. Oh, I think I saw your user on ATS once, getting mightily confused by some rather obvious words. Language is a protocol - you can use words however you see fit, but don't expect anyone to understand you if you deviate from the norm.

Or, you know, we could have skipped this entire discussion by you using language correctly. Minds far more brilliant than yours and mine realised the importance of angles, and so made a unit to describe just that, independent of any other side of the shape in which the angle resides. It's strange that you don't want to use it. But them I'm reminded of you not knowing the difference between humanoid, human, and hominid, So it's hardly surprising you're choking on words again.

In fact, my co worker and I has been discussing this half a year ago, and I didn't know Sony or anyone else was thinking about this.Using both the shutter glasses and Polaroid glasses, idea, it should also work using anaglyph, or any other stereo imaging method. It could even work with WOW TV (lengtingular lenses).Second part would be able to watch two different videos at the same time, maybe they can make special "couple movies"-dvd, with a romantic movie and an action movie in lock-step, so you can watch

Ditto on thinking of this a while ago - I had the same thought after watching Avatar in 3D (in fact, I was thinking about it at the time to take my mind off Avatar, but I digress...) and the two movie one screen concept was the first that sprang to my mind. I was thinking, with headsets delivering two soundtracks, I could be watching something entirely different to everyone else right now, although admittedly we'd all be watching in 2D. The next step was using this in the home so kids can watch their shows

1. The technology is becoming more effective and affordable.
2. Cinemas are seeing an opportunity to get people away from their home theater systems, and back into the cinemas.
3. Home theater manufacturers are seeing an opportunity to sell people a new TV and expensive goggles, even though they just bought a new LCD TV.

Add to that content providers seeing this as a way to add another layer of, if not complexity (I don't know if there are issues with compression and 3D for instance), then at least file size, to their product to make it harder to distribute on "teh intarwebs", i.e. make the files so big that a physical medium is the most convenient form of distribution.

Not really more complex, anyways. At most, you just have two video streams instead of one.
YouTube doesn't even bother with that; you upload 3D by simply stacking the left and right images side by side in the same frame.

Most consumers already own HDTVs, so offering up a clearer picture is no longer a reason for people to go out and buy the latest, greatest TV. The industry needed a new gimmick to open wallets, and 3D is that gimmick.

why in the past 2 years is there a sudden jump towards 3D (Nintendo, Nvidia/ATI, Sony, TV companies, etc)?

Because the switch to HD digital from LD analog is played out and sales are flat. You already bought that new TV if you were going to, everybody else is happy with their LD CRT and converter box. They want you to buy a new TV. They've hed 3D (actually stereoscopic) tech for theaters for decades, but you didn't see a switch to 3D there, despite the fact that a rotating polaroid filter was a cheap upgrade

Because the resolution is high enough now. 4K is beyond what most people can even comprehend. I mean, at a "normal" viewing distance and FullHD resolution I can't make out individual pixels on my 61" display, which is larger than most common 1080p TV's by 10-15". Cramming even more pixels in won't help anyone. Just like with processors... we've hit a wall, so we start expanding in another dimension. Can't crank up the frequency, let's add more cores. Can't reasonably increase the resolution any more, let's

That's great if you have the space. I only have space for one decent size TV in the living room (and putting two small ones in there would not be a reasonable alternative), and the only other way to do this is to have the players in different rooms (which also probably means two consoles or computers and two copies of the game in addition to the extra screen). For most people this will be a very practical way of having full screen multiplayer on the living room - for anyone serious about multiplayer it's pr